My My, Mike Clevinger
September 3, 2019Cookie’s return in Cleveland: While We’re Waiting
September 4, 2019Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The Kübler-Ross model? No, these are the perpetual emotions of a Cleveland Browns fan season-in and season-out. Go to any local watering hole in “The Forest City” and you will still hear rumblings of “The Drive,” “The Fumble,” “The Move,” etc. The most dedicated fans can tell you exactly where they were, what they were eating, and that all-too-familiar stomach-drop feeling where all hope faded to black. There may not be another organization in the sporting world that has experienced such heartache and despair for such an extended amount of time. A continuous culture of losing and a collection of lackluster talent pushed fans to the brink on innumerable occasions.
Let’s take a short trip to the past and look at three moments since “The Move” that encapsulate the trials and tribulations of a Browns fan:
Bottlegate
December 16, 2001. The 6-6 Browns hosted the Jacksonville Jaguars in desperate need of a win in order to keep playoff hopes alive. The Browns trailed 15-10 with 1:08 remaining in the fourth quarter and were facing 4th and 2 from the Jaguars 12 yard line. Quarterback Tim Couch received the snap, pump-faked, and delivered the first down completion to wide receiver Quincy Morgan at the Jaguars ten yard line. Couch hurried the team to the line in order to spike the ball and stop the clock. With the clock stopped at 0:48, the Browns now faced 2nd and goal with a chance to win the game. However, referee Terry McAulay decided to review the 4th down conversion, which is not in accordance with NFL rules that stipulate a play cannot be reviewed after the completion of another play. Rules be damned. Upon review, McAulay deemed the pass incomplete, with the Jaguars now in possession of the football.
Browns fans were irate. Beer bottles and other objects were thrown to the field, while players and personnel had to move to the middle of the field in order to avoid injury.
The game was initially called early at the 0:48 mark in order to mitigate the situation. However, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue informed the officiating crew that ending a game early was simply not allowed. As such, the Jaguars would kneel the ball two times to conclude the game.
Relive the moment here:
This game lives in infamy among not only Browns fans, but the entirety of the NFL. As Browns wide receiver Andre King said:
“I’m not condoning that, by all means. It’s wrong. But they paid $80 for a ticket and they’re seeing their hometown team get robbed, so they’re frustrated. And we were fighting for our lives to make the playoffs. Guys are passionate about that. That’s your legacy, your team, your city. You go through the whole summer and two-a-days to get robbed by some guys who this is their weekend gig, as referees. It hurt.”
Johnny Manziel
One homeless man. One text message. One Vegas trip. Zero accountability.
Whether you want to call him “Johnny Football” or “Billy Vegas” (more on that later), one thing is for certain: Manziel’s time with the Browns was…how do you say…not good.
As the tale goes, owner Jimmy Haslam encouraged the team to draft Manziel in the 2014 NFL Draft under the advisement of a homeless man. The polarizing, Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback was in a first-round free fall until a text message was sent to then quarterbacks coach Dowell Loggains:
“We’re sitting there and they keep showing Johnny on TV and Johnny and I are texting and he shoots me a text and he says, ‘I wish you guys would come get me. Hurry up and draft me because I want to be there. I want to wreck this league together.’ “When I got that text, I forwarded it to the owner and to the head coach Mike Pettine. I’m like, ‘This guy wants to be here. He wants to be part of it.’ As soon as that happened, Mr. Haslam said, ‘Pull the trigger. We’re trading up to go get this guy.”
The Browns drafted Manziel with the 22nd overall pick, which was met with roars throughout bars and homes of the Cleveland metro area.
With hopes of Manziel becoming the savior and the last masking-taped name on the infamous quarterback jersey, Browns fans clung to every throw and play like Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger. Hope would fade fast, however, as Manziel showed flashes on the field at times, but the playground-style of football soon caught up with him, as he had difficulties memorizing the playbook, calling audibles, and identifying opposing defensive coverages.
No moment encapsulates Johnny’s time with the Browns more than the “Billy Vegas” fiasco. Instead of attending the team’s final game of the 2016 season, Johnny decided it was a better idea to stage an Instagram post with his dog in Cleveland before catching a flight to “Sin City.”
In order to further cover his tracks, Manziel wore a blonde wig, a fake mustache, glasses, and a hoodie and went under the alias “Billy.” In an interview on The ThomaHawk Show, Manziel told all:
“I missed my flight, I put out an Instagram saying that I’m at home with my dog, and tagged it in Avon, Ohio. So then I’m like, I’m not going to be able to just go in with a hat. Let’s go get a wig. And, as funny as this is, I’m still pretty embarrassed by it. It’s still like a reckless decision, but like we said, let it die. I’m like, ‘Let’s go to this wig shop.’ So I type in Google, nearest wig shop and just go somewhere off the strip. Very very sketchy, I walk into this place and this little lady walks up [and asks], ‘What you want on your hair?’ And I’m like, ‘I need something that makes me not look like this. Do you have a mustache, do you have a wig, do you have anything?’ And she came back with this wig and I put it on, and I’m like, ‘Perfect!’ I shaved off all my facial hair except my mustache.”
After a night of partying, Manziel didn’t get back to his hotel room until 7:00 A.M. Cleveland time, when he was supposed to be at the facility by 8:00 A.M. So, he decided to turn off his phone and, symbolically, his commitment to the team.
After months of lacking accountability and dedication, Manziel was finally released by the team on March 11, 2016.
0-16
The icing on the cake. The cherry on the top. The pinnacle of Browns futility occurred on December 31, 2017, versus the Pittsburgh Steelers when wide receiver Corey Coleman dropped a potential touchdown on 4th and 2:
A lot of things had to go terribly wrong for this team to go 0-16, most notably the coaching of Hue Jackson.
Admittedly, I was excited when Jackson was hired as head coach. He had a proven track record of success as an offensive coordinator with the Bengals and a short stint as head coach with the Oakland Raiders. Unfortunately, things quickly went off the rails.
Jackson operated under the “my way or the highway” method, which doesn’t sit well with a front office, coaching staff, or players. His way generated the worst head coaching record (3-36-1) in the Super Bowl era over a 40-game stretch. Further, his career winning percentage of .205 ranks 178th out of 179 individuals who coached at least 50 NFL games. The only coach with a worse career winning percentage was Bert Bell, who had a 10-46-2 record while coaching with the Eagles and the Steelers. He was retained by the ball club for such an extended period because, well, he was also the team owner.
This is the coach that felt the earth move after a workout by Robert Griffin III. This is the coach that started a 21-year-old DeShone Kizer, who subsequently threw a league-leading 22 interceptions. This is the coach that was more worried about Baker Mayfield’s morning workout than getting the quarterback reps with the first-team offense.
Jackson wrote the book on how not to coach and lead an NFL team. One video (courtesy of HBO’s Hard Knocks) perfectly summarizes his methods (explicit language):
Never forget the moment everyone realized Hue/Haley wouldn't work out…the first episode of Hard Knocks pic.twitter.com/GiVkFYQo28
— Jkutz34 (@JKutz34) October 29, 2018
The Browns finally moved on from Jackson (and Todd Haley to boot) on October 29, 2018, clearing the way for the team to finally realize its potential.
Now, rest easy, Browns fans. You’ve made it through the worst.
Put away your tissue boxes and take off the blood pressure cuff because, fear not, this is not a column merely about doom and gloom. The future is bright, the hype is real and #DawgCheck is in full force. The “just wait until next year” war cry is finally about to end.
Gone are the days of sweat-soaked, anxiety driving press conferences by former GM Ray Farmer, the internal turmoil among the coaching staff and the PowerPoint presentations by disgruntled former offensive coordinators (looking at you, Kyle Shanahan).
Gone are the days of the quarterback revolving door, the coaching carousel, GMs texting the sidelines during games, and the malfunctioning fax machines.
This team is now a legitimate Super Bowl contender, with three individuals directly responsible for the turnaround:
John Dorsey
Team owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam began righting the ship on December 7, 2017, when they hired the well-respected John Dorsey as team GM. Upon his hire, Dorsey stated, “Football is what I know, it is what I love, it is what I have worked my whole career at and I thrive on every element that goes into building a winning football team. I have spent a majority of my football life with two franchises that also have storied history and I think I have a feel for the mentality of the fans in Cleveland and what it would mean to recreate the success this franchise once had.”
Dorsey is well on his way to recreating the storied success of the franchise, with a talent infusion that has been nothing short of Houdini-esque. Since being hired, the GM has added the following talents:
Baker Mayfield
Denzel Ward
Nick Chubb
Odell Beckham, Jr.
Olivier Vernon
Sheldon Richardson
Damarious Randall
Jarvis Landry
Kareem Hunt
Greedy Williams
In addition to the supreme level of talent additions, Dorsey has also been a key factor in changing the losing culture that has hung over the team like a shadow from Burj Khalifa. He was a key part of moving on from Hue Jackson and Todd Haley, the multiple promotions of Freddie Kitchens, and instilling confidence and trust in his coaching staff and players.
Dorsey is a man of conviction without dysfunction, mediocre, and failure in his vocabulary.
Freddie Kitchens
The man who coined the “If you don’t wear brown and orange, you don’t matter” phrase went from running backs coach to offensive coordinator to head coach over the course of one season. Don’t let his southern drawl fool you, Kitchens has a progressive offensive mind and is an astute student of the game. This good ole boy is about as real as it gets (in his own words):
“Cleveland and I get along well. I didn’t have a dad as a coach, OK? I didn’t have a starting point in this league. I grew up the son of a tire maker at Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant in Gadsden, Alabama. Benjamin E. Mays said: ‘Those who start behind in the game of life must run faster to catch up,’ and I feel like I’ve been running fast my whole life.”
Kitchens (and interim head coach Gregg Williams) inherited the Hue Jackson mess of a 2-5-1 record. The duo could have accepted the team’s fate for the season and began preparing for the NFL draft in the spring, but they did not. Kitchens put the team’s offensive playmakers in the best position to succeed not only through scheme and personnel usage, but also via conversations with players:
“At the end of the day, in the game of football, sometimes coaches forget that the game of football is played by the players, it’s not by the coaches. So everything you do is going to impact the player either negatively or positively. Hopefully, we are doing it more positively around here than negatively.”
Kitchens was at the helm of one of the league’s best offenses from weeks 9-17 of the 2018 season and was a key piece in the team’s 5-3 record down the stretch:
The Browns averaged 6.86 yards per play with Freddie Kitchens as Offensive Coordinator (Weeks 9-17).
The 2000 Rams (6.98) are the only team since the 1970 merger to average more over a full season.
— Paul Hembekides (@PaulHembo) January 9, 2019
Final Baker Mayfield season splits
Weeks 3-8: 58.3%, 1,471 yards, 8 TD, 6 INT, 20 sacks, 6.60 Y/A
Weeks 9-17: 68.4%, 2,254 yards, 19 TD, 8 INT, 5 sacks, 8.57 Y/A#Browns— Daryl Ruiter (@RuiterWrongFAN) January 2, 2019
In case you were wondering the massive improvement Freddie Kitchens made with the #Browns offense:
Weeks 9-17 @PFF overall offense grades
1. Chiefs 84.7
2. Browns 83.4
3. Saints 83.3
4. Colts 82.7— John Kosko (@JohnKosko3) January 9, 2019
Weeks 9-17, % of snaps kept clean:
1. Roethlisberger (76.3)
2. Brady (75.5)
3. Mayfield (74.2) https://t.co/oB2ib5JURC— PFF CLE Browns (@PFF_Browns) May 4, 2019
I, for one, am grinnin’ like a possum eatin’ a sweet tater at thought of the Kitchens and Baker tandem over the next decade.
Baker Mayfield
At the 2018 NFL Combine in Indianapolis, Indiana Baker Mayfield was asked about the possibility of being drafted by the Cleveland Browns. He responded:
“If there’s anyone who would turn that franchise around, it’d be me. They’re close. They’re very close. They’ve got the right pieces. I think they just need that one guy at quarterback.”
Just under two months later, Dorsey found his franchise quarterback when he drafted Mayfield with the number one overall pick of the 2018 NFL Draft. Mayfield initially rode the pine behind veteran signal-caller Tyrod Taylor until week 3 vs the New York Jets on Thursday Night Football when Taylor was forced to exit with a suspected concussion.
The crowd was on its feet. The energy was palpable. The expectations sky-high. The weight of a city drowned in years of tears on the shoulders of a 23-year-old quarterback. On 1st and 10 from the Browns 34 yard line, Mayfield fired a bullet to wide receiver Jarvis Landry for a 14-yard gain and a first down. Relive the moment here:
And as they say, the rest is history. Mayfield would go on to post the following statistics in 2018:
- Rookie quarterback passing touchdown record (27) in only 13 starts
- 1st among all Browns quarterbacks since 1946 in yards per game (minimum 100 attempts)
- 2nd among all Browns quarterbacks since 1946 in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (minimum 100 attempts)
- 20 touchdowns, 0 interceptions, and a 116.5 passer rating (T-1st in the league) in the red zone
- 51.4% accuracy percentage on deep passes (2nd in the league)
- Top-5 among first-round quarterbacks in completion percentage since 1990 (46 qualifiers)
The beer-chugging, mustache-sporting, superhero of a quarterback simply “gets us.” He personifies the newfound team mantra of “If you don’t wear brown and orange, you don’t matter.” He is “The Prince that was Promised.”
With Dorsey, Kitchens, and Baker working together, this team should make all of the heartache, tears, and anger of years past all worth it in 2019 and for many years to come.
So, fly those Browns flags from your home. Wear your Browns gear proudly in public. The days of the “same ole Browns” joke are over.
To quote Andy Dufresne from the classic film Shawshank Redemption, “…hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” The hope of Cleveland Browns fans is finally about to meet reality.